Top Canadian Psychiatrists Sound Alarm: Euthanasia Is Out of Control
by Frank Bergman
Two leading Canadian psychiatrists who helped implement their country’s “assisted suicide” system are now sounding the alarm, warning that the government is now killing patients who should never receive approval to be euthanized.
The psychiatrists, Dr. Gary Rodin and Dr. Madeline Li, delivered the warning in a New York Times opinion article this week, describing a system that has expanded far beyond a last-resort option.
Their concerns strike at the heart of assurances that Canada’s euthanasia regime is carefully controlled.
The warning comes from physicians who support assisted dying, have assessed patients for eligibility, and helped establish the procedures at one of Canada’s largest medical centers.
Now, those same doctors say the system is approving inappropriate cases and failing to give patients opportunities to reconsider before they’re killed with state-backed lethal injections.
Doctors Who Built the System Warn of Dangerous Failures
Rodin and Li are not outside critics of assisted dying.
Both have counseled patients and assessed their eligibility. One has administered the drugs used to end patients’ lives.
Together, they helped design an institutional framework for responding to assisted-death requests.
Their firsthand involvement makes their warning particularly stark.
“But Canada’s system for assisted death is no longer an option of last resort,” Rodin and Li wrote.
“Too many people are receiving the procedure without the opportunity for careful reflection about it with a health provider.
“In some cases, patients are being approved who should not be,” the psychiatrists wrote.
“Reports have emerged of people seeking assisted death in the context of poverty or loneliness, raising concerns that they may feel they have no other options.”
Even among cancer patients, Rodin and Li warned that “there’s a risk of rushing into it and shortening what can be a meaningful period in patients’ lives.”
Their account describes failures with irreversible consequences: people approved for death when they should not be, and others pursuing it while struggling with poverty, loneliness, or the belief that no alternative remains